False Walls: Cedar Harbor Cozy Mysteries, #8

The Whitcombs put a price on every family secret—except the murdered woman behind the pantry wall.

The remains belong to Carol Bennet, a housekeeper Cedar Harbor accused decades ago of stealing the family jewels and running away. But the estate-sale photographs capture every room before it changed. A pawn ticket proves one treasure vanished before Carol did. And a missing appraisal connects the Whitcombs' spotless name to debts they never confessed.

As Emma Chandler and Ollie Bradshaw sort inheritance from evidence, someone begins moving papers through a house already photographed and labeled. Family memories shift. A hidden writing desk surfaces. The wall that concealed Carol starts to look less like one desperate act than the final piece of a carefully furnished lie.

The town never searched for a thief. Emma will. If she can make the house surrender what it kept, Carol Bennet may finally come home innocent.